Banks ease up on foreclosures amid increased scrutiny

In the Florida courtroom of Chief Judge Victor Tobin, there's been a marked change the past month in the pace of foreclosures that mortgage companies ask him to approve.
Tobin had been handling up to 200 cases a day in which delinquent borrowers weren't contesting mortgage servicers' motions seeking court approval to repossess their homes. Now, it's about 50 a day.
That's not the only difference the state judge has noticed in the wake of revelations since September that some mortgage servicers did not follow legal procedures in tens of thousands of foreclosures. In contested cases now, servicers are filing new affidavits stating that they or their lawyers have reviewed supporting documents — language missing in prior affidavits, says Tobin, chief judge of the Broward County Circuit Court.

Jacob Gaffney is the Editor-in-Chief of HousingWire and HousingWire.com. He previously covered securitization for Reuters and Source Media in London before returning to the United States in 2009. While in Europe for nearly a decade, he covered bank loans and the high yield market, in addition to commercial paper, student loan, auto and credit card space(s). At HousingWire, he began focusing his journalism on all aspects of the housing and mortgage markets.

Commentary

With the recent turnover in leadership at the Federal Housing Finance Agency, we may be standing at the precipice of great change in the government’s role in supporting the mortgage market through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.